Justin Timberlake + Comedy = Greatness?

[JSngry]

Never mind the boybandpop, is it just me or does this guy have an uncanny ear for comedy?

[JSngry]

[Jazzmoose]

At this point, I'm so out of the loop, all I'm sure of is that I have heard the name Justin Timberlake before.

[sidewinder]

Doesn't he do boots and casual clothing?

[Dan Gould]

It depends on how much he actually contributed to "Dick in a Box".

[JSngry]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLR0do3mWtA

Sure he probably didn't write it, but still...

[PHILLYQ]

Here's a comedy one that Dan mentioned above that cracks me up:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhwbxEfy7fg

[JSngry]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJzCqoyUW0I

[jazzbo]

I thought he was excellent in one of my favorite movies, "Southland Tales."

[jlhoots]

I thought he was excellent in one of my favorite movies, "Southland Tales."

He was also good in The Social Network.

[jazzbo]

Yeah. But that is not one of my favorite movies.

[Quincy]

Word is he's absolutely hilarious and if he wasn't a mega-famous singer that he would be hired a cast member. I don't think that's people just being nice as most of the highlights in recent years involve him. Granted Fallon is half of it but the Barry Gibb Talk Show had me in stitches the first time I saw it.

[JSngry]

Speaking of the Timberlake/Fallon tandem, his isn't really comedy, but it's new-school old-school variety-show bit at its best (imo):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9EKunCS_As

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fhQ2UfEQxo

They did Part 4 last night.

Fallon is totally whoring out, but he's not hiding his skills while he does, so...Show Biz Livz!

[JSngry]

Word is he's absolutely hilarious and if he wasn't a mega-famous singer that he would be hired a cast member. I don't think that's people just being nice as most of the highlights in recent years involve him. Granted Fallon is half of it but the Barry Gibb Talk Show had me in stitches the first time I saw it.

Did you see Fallon last night? Don't know if you watch regularly or not (I watch semi-regularly), but every so often he gets into a riffing match with Steve Higgins. Last night was an exceptional one, with Higgins just goading him to go on, and with Fallon accepting the challenge, it was like a cutting contest/jam session. Cool stuff, and not something you see regualrly on Fallon's show. But it does happen often enough for me to tune in sem-regularly, jsut to see if it'll happen that night.

Anyway, Timberlake comes out (he'd been a guest-in-residence all week), and Fallon starts pimping the new JT album, (which of course was the reason for all of this) & he's his usual gushy-effusive self. JT finally interrupts him by looking at the audience and saying something like Hey, this is the best review I can get, right here! Show-Biz Nice Guy 101, and Fallon stops and says, well, I don't really care for it myself..pause...it's not MY type of thing...etc. and before you know it, it's cutting contest time again, with Timberlake finally getting control with "I don't even like music, I don't even like the SOUND of music" and then BAM, he's off into a bigass bag full of Sound Of Music riffs, some of which were pretty dark, and none of which I can quote verbatim the day after, alas.

I doubt that it was all scripted. It might have been outlined, but even at that, Timberlake is shaping up to be somebody who's seen enough and done enough to really know where the absurd is, and given half a chance he'll poke at it mercilessly.

And here I was all ready to steady-hate on the guy, Dick In A Box notwithstanding. I was giving that one all to Andy Samberg. But now, I think JT might have some skill of his own. Sure looks that way.

And speaking of Samberg/Fallon...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgcYP3EKBKA

[Noj]

Timberlake often golfs at the course where my friend Kevin is the pro, and Kevin says Justin is a great guy. Really down to earth and funny.

[JSngry]

Oh yeah, one more thing that cracked me up - Fallon was going on about how every song on the new album sounded like an instant classic, how even though they were brand new songs they sounded like you'd heard them forever. Well, I was smelling that one, and Timberlake was too, because he jumped in and said, totally serious - that's because they're all just bits and pieces of songs that I stole from other people....JUST KIDDING, but him and Fallon both had facial expressions that said, no not JUST KIDDING, and I was like, man these two guys are GAMERS, ya' know?

So yeah Show BIDNESS baby, and knowing that the guy KNOWS is why, I think, I found myself grooving on this Presentation more than even my most permissive conscience should allow for:

Being Damn Good At It is all the seriousness this type of thing can handle, and needs to handle, ya' know? And that bass playing ain't bullshit either, if anybody's bother to listen.

[ejp626]

My thing is -- clearly the guy does have talent and yes, he is pretty funny and willing to poke fun at himself. This all goes a long way. But then he goes and performs this drivel -- that he knows is drivel -- just because that is what the market is all about. I don't hate him for it or even fault him for it really, but I do hate the pop that is being regurgitated at us constantly, so I'm not going to listen to it and certainly not buy it, even if JT himself is an ok guy. It's just depressing what mass pop is today. It is cruder (both musically and content-wise) than what was going on 15, 20, 30 years ago. Why is pop music regressing (even if there is a bit of interesting alternative music here and there)? I know this is the standard get off my lawn rant, but studies have shown that pop music is less complex and challenging than it was in the past. It's not just my imagination or rose coloured glasses.

[JSngry]

I can't hate on anybody for having fun making money out of pop music and for making money having fun with pop music. If it's Ear Candy (and this definitely is) that gets to my sweet tooth (and that Suit & Tie thing definitely does, as does something like Janet Jackson's "Escapade", that's another one, that ok wtf EVER, I like this, ok?) then it's up to me to Consume Responsibly. Stoopid always gonna be Stoopid, so WATCH OUT, especially for The Other Guy!

As far as pop music "regressing", yeah, maybe at some levels, but I've found myself landing on some Top 40 hip-hop stations and wondering at how everything could be so thuddy except the drum programing, which is skittery-skeeting ALL over the place, and finally coming to the conclusion that whatever "regression" is going on is on terms that perhaps no longer apply to anybody except somebody who cares. So let's see where all that's gonna end up, that and these melodies that kinda cross barlines at weird places with internal melismas that are almost "Arabic" or some such.

I mean, it sucks getting old and finding out that Your Standards No Longer Apply, but once you come to terms with that, hey, there's fun to be had anyway. And I'm gonna have me some fun. If I don't, they win.

And that there is a difference...the 2nd cut that Timberlake did on SNL the other night was a total drag, not good for me at all, so fuck him on that one.

See, it's just that easy!

[ejp626]

To a certain extent, "it's all been done before." That itself is a story as old as the Bible. But in the past, a typical artistic response was to come up with more complexity, more mash-ups from different places and traditions, more complexity in the rhythmic schemes or chord sequences. And this does happen in the alternative music world to some extent. But contemporary pop has really retreated back to music for infants essentially. I guess a couple of the Nicky Minaj songs do have some weird changes in them, but it is pretty crude, like being put through a blender.

Anyway, I was just thinking of the song "And the Angels Sing" from the 40s and how that is so much more interesting than almost anything you hear on the radio now, in terms of tempo and chord changes. I have plenty of other music I can listen to, but it is a shame for the younguns who grow up with this and don't know any better.

[Blue Train]

I am not a fan of his music, but he can seriously dance. I met him twice. He's exactly as Noj's friend describes him. He and SNL/Fallon just work. Love the History of Rap stuff, especially.

For JSngry

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rK6f_MwyIL8


À chacun son goût, but The Roots are the best house band in late night history.

[JSngry]

What I see happening more and more in what little "contemporary pop" I hear that captures my attention/imagination (and that right there narrows it down to a less than insignificant statistical sample) is the layering of "events"...it's not about "songs" any more nearly as much as it is a bunch of things that in the old days would have been in the forefront all getting subsumed/consumed into one big interlocking whole. I mean, foreground/background...amybe not so much these days, and really isn't that how most people live today, in interlocking layers of only-sometimes-related simultaneity? Is this not The Truth we learned from Cecil Taylor LAST century, that yeah, it's there, it's real, and it's good, so when will The Masses catch up might not be the question now, maybe The Question Now is Hey, Look At It Happening, Baby Steps, not Giant Steps. But - maybe it IS happening, so let's not bury the lede.

Now sure, what makes up those parts is getting more and more "simple" (except for, again, some of the drum programming, which is more like On The Corner than anything else, however that happened), but if I can not listen to it like that (and yeah, I'm fully aware that if I have to make myself listen to it like that that it's something that is not of/for me in any "organic" sense), I can hear how maybe it's got to be that simple in order for it all to fit in a "pop" way, at least right now it does, and that maybe this isn't so much a de-evoltuion of one sophistication as it is the ground-floor level of the beginning of a new evolution of another.

Or maybe the world is going to hell in a handbasket and civilization is in fact fucked, nobody believes in songs, nobody believes in god, hey, it's Thug Rule EVERY damn where. Or maybe Going Digital is the ultimate You Can't Go Back (and well, isn't THAT a coincidence?). I can see it happening both ways (simultaneously, of course!).

Either way, my personal preference is to look in on at what I can stand to look in on, and then like what I can like, which once you get past the math, really is not a complicated proposition, same as laughing. At root it's a gut instinct/reflex and all the "schooling" and/or "thinking" in the world won't change your gut, unless you're REALLY fucked, like Manchurian Candidate fucked, in which case:

[JSngry]

I am not a fan of his music, but he can seriously dance. I met him twice. He's exactly as Noj's friend describes him. He and SNL/Fallon just work. Love the History of Rap stuff, especially.

For JSngry

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rK6f_MwyIL8

À chacun son goût, but The Roots are the best house band in late night history.

Yeah, that's it, thanks. Not exactly linearly as I remembered it, but riffage, comedy riffage. Raw talent perhaps, but the skills are there.

And big love for The Roots as house band. It's fun to watch that show just to hear them. And they NAIL those turn on a dime medleys. SERIOUS skills.

[Soulstation1]

JR's best movie was Black Snake Moan

It didn't matter if he was in it or not .....

BSM was all about Christina Ricci

[Scott Dolan]

Whenever I've seen Timberlake perform comedy I was impressed. Very talented cat.

[skeith]

I don't much care for JT's music, but yes he seems to have some comedy chops... whenever he is on SNL it is usually funnier than most recent episodes.